by Jack Mars
Luke grunted. He saw, in a flash of insight, that he was the one who didn’t understand. All these years, he had compartmentalized like a good agent. That’s how they taught you to think about it. On the one hand, you had the job, and everything you did as part of the job. The secrets you learned and then quickly forgot, the people you met, or arrested, or killed. On the other hand, you had your real life. You kept the two as far apart as possible.
But it was a lie. The work was dangerous and it was dirty. Luke routinely dealt with some of the worst people on Earth. They didn’t draw arbitrary distinctions like work life and home life. It was all the same to them. It was all fair game.
How did he not see this until now? Or had he seen it all along and ignored it?
There was a terrible thought in his mind, one he didn’t want to think. He had been doing this a long time. When people were kidnapped, mostly they were killed. Letting them go was dangerous. They knew too much. They saw too much. It was easier and smarter just to kill them.
This business was full of people who killed for a living. It was nothing to them. They could kill in the morning and then go to Applebee’s for a ten-dollar lunch.
Luke clenched his teeth against the scream that raged in his throat. Abruptly, he started crying, and that surprised even him. But it hurt. It hurt so bad, and it had hardly even started yet. He knew that. He knew how bad it was going to be. He had seen it many times. Innocent people wrenched from this life, ripped away. The survivors like shadows, empty, alive and dead at the same time. His body was wracked by sobs.
His phone beeped. He looked down at it, hoping it was from her. It wasn’t. It was from David Delliger.
I can meet you. Annapolis?
Okay. That decided him.
Across from his basement door was his neighbor Mort’s house. Mort was a funny guy, mid-fifties, single. He was a lobbyist for the casino industry. Not the established casino industry in Las Vegas. The weird casino industry, which kept popping up with slot machine houses at old rundown harness racing tracks, and dismal “riverboats” moored in man-made lakes in the middle of Nowhere, Indiana.
Mort was headquartered here in Washington, but he spent a lot of time flying around the country to grease the palms of state legislators. He wasn’t around very much.
Like tonight. Luke could always tell when Mort was away by the timing patterns of his indoor automatic lighting. It was consistent from one night to the next. It would never fool a burglar, but it probably gave Mort peace of mind, which was more important to a man like Mort anyway.
Mort made a lot of money. He made so much money that last year he had built an addition onto his house. The addition was big. And it was garish. It was a post-modern tumor, a mix and match of various architectural styles, growing out of the side of Mort’s stately colonial. It came within bare inches of the real estate setbacks on Luke’s side of the property. Luke liked Mort, he really did, but that addition was obnoxious. It was beyond the pale.
And Mort wasn’t home.
From his crouch, Luke opened the basement door about halfway. Mort’s house was close, easy throwing distance. Luke pulled the pin on one of his grenades and tossed it down the small hillock toward Mort’s house. The grenade bounced twice and nestled perfectly against the wall.
Luke ducked back and hit the deck.
BOOM!
A flash of light and sound ruptured the darkness. After a few seconds, Luke got up and went back to the door. The grenade had blasted a hole into the side of Mort’s house. A small fire had started there around the ragged edges of the hole.
Luke opened the door all the way this time, stepped outside, gambling there were no snipers, pulled the pin on his second grenade, and threw it like a baseball right through the middle of that flaming hole. He dashed inside again.
The light was different this time, and the sound was muffled. Luke looked out. The side of Mort’s addition had caved in. There was debris all over the grass between the two houses. The fire was starting in earnest. Once the furniture and the paperwork and the rugs and all the various junk got going, it was going to get nice and warm over there.
One more? Sure. One more would do it. Luke stepped out and tossed the last grenade into the already flaming house. In the distance, sirens were already approaching. The local police, fire engines, ambulances—they’d be here in minutes. Once all the neighbors came out onto their lawns in their robes and slippers, it was going to be quite a scene. It would be hard to quietly disappear someone with so many citizens round.
Luke went back upstairs as the final blast rocked Mort’s house. He looked out the windows. Burning embers were flying everywhere, black smoke funneling into the sky against the red and orange glow.
The two dark squad cars started up and silently pulled away. The van was already gone. It was time for Luke to go as well. He looked at the burning house again. He shook his head.
“Sorry, Mort.”
Chapter 43
11:19 p.m.
Queen Anne’s County, Maryland - Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay
The tall man was done. He writhed on the floor in agony.
He wasn’t getting up again.
Becca took Gunner by the hand. She led him to the window and pushed the screen out. It clattered away and slid down the tiles. Behind her, heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs.
She crouched in front of Gunner. “Honey, climb out, run to the other side, carefully, and shimmy down the drainpipe. Just like we do in fire drills, okay? I’m right behind you. When you hit that grass, you run. Run to the Thompsons’ house as fast as you can. Okay?”
She thought of the Thompsons, an old couple who were eighty-five if they were a day.
“Who is that man, Mom?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Now go!”
Gunner climbed head first out the window, jumped up, and ran.
Now it was her turn. She glanced at the door. Two more men came barreling into the room and ran toward her. She dove through the window. She scrabbled across the slate tiles, but one of the men grabbed her leg. She was three quarters of the way onto the roof, one quarter still in the room. The men had both her legs now. They started to pull her back inside.
She kicked crazily, as hard as she could.
She heard herself making sounds. “Aahh! Anh!”
She kicked free, then rolled backwards. She was all the way onto the low slanted roof. A second later, one of the men dove through the window. He was with her then. They rolled together, toward the end. He tried to pin her, but she scratched and tore at his eyes. He rolled away to escape her, rolled too far, and went right over the edge. She heard him hit the cement walkway with a thud.
She jumped up and started to run. Another man was climbing onto the roof. Up ahead, Gunner was already at the drainpipe. He sat on the lip of the roof, his legs dangling. He grabbed the pipe, pushed himself off, then swung around to the left and disappeared.
Becca reached the edge.
Gunner slid down the pipe, landed on the grass, then rolled backward onto his butt. A second passed, and he was still on the ground.
“Get up, Gunner! Run!”
He pushed himself up, turned, and ran down the hill toward the Thompson house.
Becca looked back. A man approached her across the roof. Behind him, another one was just climbing out the window. Below and to her left, she saw men on the ground turning the corner of the house and coming this way.
There was no time to climb down. She just turned and jumped.
She hit hard, and she felt a sharp pain in her ankle. She rolled forward over her shoulder, came up limping, and ran anyway. Each step sent a shockwave of pain up her leg. She ran on. Ahead of her, Gunner was running, his arms and legs pumping. She was gaining on him.
“Run, Gunner!” she screamed. “Run!”
Behind her, she heard the pounding footsteps of the men. She heard their heavy breathing. She ran and ran. She saw their shadows in the grass ahead of her. They came c
loser, closer, then mingled with hers. Arms reached for her. She fought them off.
“No!”
A man dove for her. She felt the weight of his body. They crashed to the ground and went sliding along the grass. She fought him, scratching and clawing. Another man came, and then another. They held her down.
Two men ran by, after the boy.
“Run!” she shrieked. “Run!”
She craned her neck to see what was happening. A hundred yards away, Gunner was almost to the Thompson house. Lights came on inside the house. The porch light came on outside. Gunner bounded up the steps just as the door opened.
The two men were just behind him. They stopped running and walked to the porch. Slowly they climbed the steps.
Becca could see Mr. and Mrs. Thompson standing in the doorway, framed by the light. Suddenly there was a burst of light, then another. Muzzle flashes, but Becca couldn’t hear a sound. This close, but she couldn’t hear the guns.
Mr. and Mrs. Thompson dropped to the floor. There was another flash, then another, as the men finished them off.
“Oh no,” Becca said.
Now the men were coming back, walking with Gunner. They flanked him, each one holding one of his wrists.
There was a man on top of her. He had a bad shave and coffee breath.
“Did you see that?” he said. “Did you see it? You did that, not us. If you had come quietly, that never would have happened.”
There was nothing left to do. Becca spit in the man’s face.
Chapter 44
11:27 p.m.
Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center - Bluemont, Virginia
Chuck Berg drifted in and out of consciousness for hours, until another explosion woke him. The sound was deep, like faraway thunder. It made an impression in the air, like a wave on the ocean. He seemed to swim underwater for a long while, then he rose to the surface.
He broke through and opened his eyes. Thirty-seven years old, Chuck had been in the Secret Service for almost twelve years. He had spent two of those riding a desk, and nine of them as part of an advance security team. Six months ago, he had been awarded the plum assignment of a lifetime, working as one of the Vice President’s personal bodyguards. It didn’t feel so plum right now.
Chuck pieced together what he could remember. They had exited the elevator and were moving down a narrow corridor to the TV studio. They were a couple minutes late, and were walking fast. He was behind the Vice President. Two men, Smith and Erickson, were in the lead.
Suddenly the steel door in front of them blew inward. Erickson died instantly. Smith turned to come back up the corridor. His face was lit with the firelight as the flames burst through the shattered doorway. He saw a shadow stagger through the bright orange and yellow of the flames. It was Smith, lit up like a torch. He screamed for only a second, then went silent and keeled over. Berg pictured Smith inhaling fire. His throat ruptured, the scream had died almost before it began.
Chuck tackled the Vice President and held her down.
A shockwave moved through the hallway. The entire facility seemed to tremble. Something hit Berg in the head. He remembered thinking: Okay, I’m dead. Okay.
But he wasn’t dead. He was still here, in the same corridor, in pitch-darkness, on top of the Vice President. The pain in his head was bad. He ran a hand along his scalp and found a wide slice tacky with dried blood. He pushed into it. A cracked skull should make the pain worse the more he probed. It didn’t happen.
He was alive, and he seemed to be operational. And that meant he had a job to do.
“Mrs. Hopkins?” he said. She was tiny, so small compared to him that lying on top of her was strange.
“Ma’am, are you with me?”
“Call me Susan,” came her surprisingly resilient voice. “I hate all that ma’am shit.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m in pain,” she said. “But I don’t know how bad it is.”
“Can you move your arms and legs?”
She squirmed beneath him. “Yes. But my right arm hurts a lot.” Her voice was shaking. “The skin on my face hurts. I think I was burned.”
Chuck nodded. “Okay.” He did the math. She could move her extremities, so no important nerves had been severed. They had been down here a long time. Internal injuries or severe burns probably would have killed her by now. So her injuries, while painful, were probably not immediately life threatening.
“Ma’am, in a moment, we’re going to see if you can stand, but not yet. I’m going to crawl away just for a minute, then I’ll be right back. I don’t want you to move at all. I want you to stay exactly where you are in exactly the position you are in. It’s very dark and I need you right where you are. Do you understand? Please say yes or no.”
“Yes,” she said in a little girl voice. “I understand.”
He left her behind, moving like a snake along the floor. He had noted an emergency kit stored behind glass directly across from the elevator doors. If that part of the hall was intact, he would be in business. He moved slowly, touching everything in front of him, looking for sharp edges and possible drop-offs. There was a lot of debris. He also felt along the wall. After a time, his hand touched the indent in the wall which told him he had reached the elevator.
Chuck worked his way to a kneeling position. Three feet above the ground, the air became fetid and smoky. He ducked back to the floor.
“Mrs. Hopkins?” he called out. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here, all right.”
“Continue to stay on the floor, please. Do not stand up for any reason, okay?”
“Okay.”
Chuck took a deep breath then stood up. His knees popped. His hands moved along the wall until they found the glass case. He had no idea how to open it, so he punched it as hard as he could. It was breakaway glass, and it shattered instantly.
The case was deep. His hands roamed inside of it, feeling familiar shapes. There were ventilator masks in here. He would need those. There was a gun—unnecessary, given the circumstances. He found a flashlight secured to the wall with a strap. He undid the snap, brought the flashlight out, and turned it on. It worked.
Oh my God. Light.
Quickly now he found water and a stack of meals-ready-to-eat. A first aid kit. A hatchet and a universal tool. He dropped to the floor just before his breath ran out.
He leaned against the wall. They were alive, and they had supplies. They were moving forward, and it was time to start thinking ahead. The facility had been attacked. It was a hardened facility, so it should withstand any missile or bomb attack from above. That suggested the attack had come from down here. And that, in turn, suggested that Chuck needed to find a way to the surface.
But…
He had to be careful. Nearly a decade ago, when he had first gone in the field, they had paired him an older agent, a man named Walt Brenna, who was months from retirement. Walt had a funny way about him. The other agents said he was a curmudgeon. They told Chuck not to listen to him. But he and Walt spent a lot of time together. Some days, there was nothing to do but listen to him.
Walt was obsessed with a concept he called “White on White.”
“They’ll tell you that this job is watching out for Islamic terrorists or Russian assassins or what have you,” Walt would say. “But it really isn’t. You think those guys are going to get anywhere near the President of the United States? Think again. The entire point of what we do is to neutralize a White on White attack.”
Chuck Berg took Walt’s ramblings with a giant grain of salt. But they stuck with him over the years, and he sometimes thought about them. To Walt Brenna, a White on White attack was one where the government attacked itself. The Kennedy assassinations were examples of this. So was the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Walt Brenna on Reagan:
“The Vice President, first in the line of succession, is the former CIA Director. The father of the man who tries to kill the President is
the head of World Vision, a CIA front group. The Vice President’s family are friends with the would-be assassin’s family. The Vice President’s brother and the assassin’s brother are scheduled to have lunch together while the murder is taking place. Very little of this makes the newspapers. None of it is ever investigated. Why? Because the assassin is crazy and that’s all we need to know? No. Because White on White is an accepted part of the game. Their job is to do it, and our job is to stop it. Offense and defense, that’s all.”
As the years passed, Chuck learned that Walt wasn’t the only one in the Service who thought this way. No one talked openly about it, but he had heard whisperings. How could you identify a White on White? What would it look like if one was coming?
Chuck nodded to himself. This is what it would look like. A bomb had gone off inside a secure facility, hours after an attack on the White House. The explosions at the White House also came from inside the building, or most of them did. Outsiders couldn’t plant bombs in either place, and definitely not in both places. The only ones who could have done this were the military, the intelligence community, or the Secret Service itself.
With the benefit of the flashlight, he crouched low and duck-walked quickly back to the Vice President. She hadn’t moved at all.
“Ma’am? You can sit up now, if you can manage it. I have food, water, and a first aid kit. We’re going to need to wear these masks when we move out, and I’ll show you how. It will seem cumbersome and confining at first, but I promise you’ll get used to it.”
She moved slowly to a sitting position. She winced at the pain in her arm. Some of the skin on her face had peeled away. To Berg, the burns looked superficial, although she might get some scarring or discoloration. If that was the worst thing that happened to her, Chuck would call that lucky.
“Shouldn’t we try to call someone?” she said.
He shook his head. “No. We can’t call anyone. We don’t know who the enemy is. For the time being, we’re going to operate in secret.”